Step 1. Overview

The Department of Information Technology (DoIT) provides state agencies the use of a search system powered by Google Search Engine technology. Adoption of the search standard will provide the State's citizens and visitors efficient and consistent access to information. Please review the presentation from the webmaster's meeting (2.5 MB pdf) on March 9, 2007 for important information about this initiative.

Refer to the Maryland.gov Search Services Standards and Agency Implementation Guide (165.8 KB pdf) for implementation steps. This document is a work in progress and as such is marked as "draft" pending the review and comments from the webmaster's forum prior to approval by the IT Advisory Council (ITAC).

Please notify DoIT of your intention to implement the search standards by contacting the Maryland.gov Service Desk. A Web Systems staff member will contact you to walk through the implementation process. You may also request a .gov subdomain by contacting the Service Desk.

Step 2. Search Code

Insert the following code into your web site based on the Maryland State Branding standards. Replace the "YourSearchValueHere" text with your specific agency "collection name" as designated in the search collection list.

<form name="gs" method="get" action="http://search.maryland.gov/search" id="Form2">
<input type="text" class="searchTextBox" accesskey="4" name="q" id="q" size="30" maxlength="256" value="Search" onfocus="if(this.value=='Search'){this.value='';this.style.color='#000';}else{this.select();}" />
<!-- site collection name -->
<input type="hidden" name="site" value="YourSearchValueHere" id="site" />
<input type="image" class="searchButton" name="btnG" id="search" title="Search" alt="Search" src="images/page/searchButton.gif" />
<!-- gsa variables -->
<input type="hidden" name="entqr" value="0" id="entqr" />
<input type="hidden" name="ud" value="1" id="ud" />
<input type="hidden" name="sort" value="date:D:L:d1" id="sort" />
<input type="hidden" name="output" value="xml_no_dtd" id="output" />
<input type="hidden" name="oe" value="UTF-8" id="oe" />
<input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8" id="ie" />
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="search_md_1" id="client" />
<input type="hidden" name="proxystylesheet" value="search_md_1" id="proxystylesheet" />
</form>

Step 3. Post Implementation Review

The following are recommended issues to consider after you have implemented the new search system to your agency website.

• Provide forum for user feedback relating to search results findings
• Schedule times to evaluate search results to determine need for updates in the search system configuration
• Document the design and coding updates made to your website
• Monitor your search collection logs - click here to login to GSA Admin